Welcome to the home of Embrace Africa! Embrace is a project with the goal of simply getting kids into school. Here in North America, we take for granted the fact that our children can attend school and receive an education. In countries like Uganda, its just not that simple.

In 1997, the Ugandan government began providing free primary education for up to 4 children per family. This may sound great, but the average family in Uganda has 8 children which means that the four oldest get an education and the rest may or may not have the opportunity to attend primary school (usually ages 7 to 14). In addition, the free education is at state run schools which have significantly overcrowded classrooms and there are nowhere near enough of these schools to educate all of the country's youth. Even at these state run schools, parents are still expected to pay for uniforms and costs such as workbooks.

In a 1995-2005 study, it was revealed that 85% of the Ugandan population earns less than $1 a day. If you consider that school fees can range anywhere from $30 to hundreds of dollars per school year per child plus uniform and school supply costs, you can see how most families will find it difficult to provide for the education of their children, even if they can get their first four children into a state run school. Assume for a minute a family earns $50 a month and they have 3 children that they need to pay education costs of $60 a year ($35 tuition, $20 uniform, $5 supplies) for. Education costs would equal almost four month's income. You can see how this is not an option for many.

Embrace Africa was born out of a desire to see as many East African children as possible receive a proper education. We have started by working Jinja region of Uganda but have plans to work with children and schools in Northern Uganda as well as Rwanda and other East African regions going forward. Please check out our projects page to see exactly who we are supporting.